Joshua Tree Rocks!
I’ve lived in Southern California for a very long time, and anyone who’s lived here even a fraction as long as I have has no doubt visited the wondrous and surreal Joshua Tree National Park. I’ve been out there more times than I can count. While I still enjoy the occasional trip to the park, I find less joy in taking photos because, let’s face it, how many pictures of a Joshua tree can you take? Sure, it’s a photogenic spot, but after a while, it starts to feel like the first time you hear Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and play it three times in a row. By the fourth, the shimmer wears thin, the hook sours, and you’re left clutching your ears, as if all the neon in Vegas had crawled in there and started slapping tambourines. It’s like bingeing on Twinkies—delicious at first, but by the end, you’re awash in a sugar hangover, questioning your life choices. OK, OK, maybe that’s a little over the top, but you get my point.
Recently, I found myself out there again because a friend wanted to show me some places that were sure to be devoid of Instagrammers. So there we were, wandering into some forsaken corner of the park, a place so quiet I could hear my thoughts start to echo. I figured I’d go through the motions, get a few “meh” shots, and call it a day. I started to shoot, slowly at first, still feeling pretty meh about it. But there are times when you get “the vision” —you start seeing things. Not just in the abstract sense, but really seeing things—faces in the rocks, stories etched into the stone by eons of wind and time. It was as if the desert had been waiting for me to stop chasing the obvious and let it introduce me to the stuff hiding in plain sight.
Sometimes, all it takes is a shift in perspective, silence—and maybe a desert that’s been around long enough to know better—to remind you that even the most familiar places have mysteries left to reveal. You just have to stand still long enough to see them.
